Girls, students of color, and LGBTQ students are disproportionately impacted by public school dress codes that target clothing and hairstyles, according to a federal report released Tuesday.
Nearly all K-12 school districts have a policy regulating dress, according to the U.S. Government Accounting Office, which analyzed data from 236 districts across the country. The policies raise concerns about equity and safety for at-risk students, the report said.
About 90% of the dress codes prohibit clothing typically associated with girls, such as short skirts, spaghetti strap tank tops and leggings, the report said. About 69% of dress code policies target clothing often worn by boys, including muscle shirts and sagging pants, according to the 60-page report.
The report comes as more districts across the country and in the region are adopting gender-neutral dress codes in an attempt not to disproportionately target girls. Cherry Hill is poised to consider its first major dress code revision in a decade.
While school districts often cite safety as the reason for having a dress code, the policies often make the school environment less safe for some students, the report found. For example, some students, particularly girls, reported feeling uncomfortable when school officials physically touched them in order to measure clothing such as skirt length.
According to the report, 60% of dress codes have rules involving measuring to determine if a student’s clothing is acceptable. In some cases, the measuring was conducted in front of other students, causing embarrassment, the report said.
For example, one dress code said, according to the report, “The test: No bare midsection or back is revealed when arms are stretched overhead.”
Nearly all district dress code policies contain subjective language that makes compliance open to interpretation, with phrases such as “revealing” or “immodest clothing,” the report said.
Researchers said none of the dress codes with “sex-based” rules explicitly protected transgender or non-binary students and their choice to dress according to their gender identity, the report said. About 15% of dress codes have rules that “no fingernail polish or makeup is allowed on male students,” the report found.
Most dress codes have rules about hairstyles and head coverings that disproportionately impact Black students and those from certain religious and cultural backgrounds, the report said. Only about one-third of dress codes allow religious exemptions for head coverings.
According to the report, about 44% of districts ban hair wraps, some specifically citing durags. One in five has rules with subjective language such as, “hair must look natural, clean, and well-groomed” or say students’ hair must not be “distracting” or “extreme.”
According to the report, schools that strictly enforce dress codes primarily enroll Black and Hispanic students. Those students are more likely to face discipline by being removed from the classroom or suspended, the report said.
The report recommended that the U.S. Department of Education provide resources to develop more equitable dress code policies, and collect and disseminate information on the prevalence of informal removals and non-exclusionary discipline such as in-school suspension.
